Blog #3

Icon #1: Bubby/Holocaust

My Bubby is one of my Icons due to her experience in the Holocaust and how that affected her life. I focus on her time in the Holocaust in part of my Artist Statement, so for this blog on decided to discuss the Holocaust.

Evidence:
For my evidence I found three quotes that I believe relate to what ideas I am discussing in my paper and that both my family and I believe in.

1.“I tell my story so that they might tell the next generation.” Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor, artist, (Hungary, Israel)
This quote really connects to my wishes for Judaism because I hope that I will be able to tell my children about our family's history with our religion and what it took to get us to this point in time. To both my family and myself, we believe in passing on the stories and experiences that we went through, the main one being the Holocaust. In order to keep that memory alive we have to pass it on from generation to generation.

2.“We must ever be thankful [for our freedom]. We must NEVER take freedom for granted.” William Gast, 743rd Tank Battalion
My family knew what it felt to not be free, of course due to the Holocaust, but they also felt it from living in Romania. Their home was taken away from them because of their religion. In one moment they lost everything they had because of who they were. They decided to move to America to pursue the freedom that they knew they deserved and needed, but were not given.

3."No one yet knows what awaits the Jews in the twenty-first century, but we must make every effort to ensure that it is better than what befell them in the twentieth, the century of the Holocaust." - Benjamin Netanyahu
As a result of my family moving to America they allowed themselves to have the opportunity at a better life than what they had in Romania. They knew that the life they were living in Romania was not the one that they wanted and had to take their lives into their own hands. They did that by moving to America.

4.http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da=recordings&ke=25

This is a transcript of what a woman said about her experience with the Nazis. She explained the fear she felt when she saw them, how scared she was and how she hid in order to escape them. My Bubby was sick of hiding and being afraid, thus she decided to move from Romania to American to finally be free.

Develop Artist Statement:

I can push my Artist Statement with my Bubby's experience in the Holocaust and how she decided to move her family to American in order to pursue a better life. I want to take the response from each quote and take the ideas from that, to create one larger idea about the Holocaust and how it affected my family. The quotes speak true to what I am trying to say in my Statement about her and how she taught my father, who in turn taught me, to stand up for your beliefs and never take no for an answer. I could also add my time at the Yad Vashem Museum in Israel and talk about how that gave me new insight into the atrocities committed and the type of environment those in the Holocaust where forced to live through.

Resources:

1.This website gives a good overview of what the Holocaust was and what happened in it. It allows me and others to have a better perspective on what happened in this dark time.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143

2.Yad Vashem is a Holocaust Museum in Israel that my family and I visited when we went there for my Bat Mitzvah. It contains such powerful visuals and audios about the Holocaust and I learned so much that I didn't know and was impacted greatly. This website is also a connection a place I've been that showed me more about my past.

http://www.yadvashem.org/

3.Here you can read transcripts of what Holocaust survivors have to say about their experiences. It is very insightful as it gives real examples and how they were feeling.
http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=list&da=recordings&so=title

Icon #2: My Dad
I sat down with my father and asked him some questions about what is was like to live in Romania, come to America, and his family's past.

Evidence:
1."My parents got together with other Holocaust survivors to learn about others and what happened to them. That's how you knew who lived and who died. I was a child, I listened to every conversation. I realized how horrible people can be and how important it is to believe in keeping your own identity. You can't let something like the Holocaust erase that because that is what they were trying to do. But in spite of that people lived and kept telling their stories so no one forgot about it."

This gave me the perspective into how my dad learned about his parent's past and how important it is to never forget about it. He learned about it through stories, and stories are what he tells me know in order to let me know about what happened.

2."We left communism because there was no freedom of religion or freedom of religion. You had to hide from everyone and were too afraid to talk to anybody. We had waited for years to leave Romania and when they finally let didn't let us take anything. We had to give up our ownership or property and leave with the suitcases in our hands. America gave us the freedom to pick and choose what we wanted. It gave us opportunities that we didn't have. I could further my education."


3."I am proud that my people persevered and maintained a sense of pride and wouldn't allowed and ideology or a people to crush their sense of fairness and beliefs. It showed me that you have to maintain a belief in who you are and not allow people who want to crush your ideas to preserve. Communism was the same thing, they tried to do the same thing. It showed how important freedom is and that there is no other country like the United States. We aren't perfect but compared to everything else, it is the best in the world."


Develop Artist Statement:

With this interview I was able to gain new insight and some amazing words that my dad shared with me. He is such an eloquent speaker and has such passion with what he says. I could add a direct quote of what he has said during this interview in order to bring in more personal aspect as I will be able to share his actual words. I also would like to add the angle that the communist took away his home. Doing this would show how they faced adversity in many aspects and that it didn't matter, they were never going to let that stop them. I think this interview was very helpful as it has given me quotes that I can insert into my Artist Statement.

Resources:
1.This is the website for my dad's business. I think that this website shows how far my dad was able to take his life and the things that he has done with it. He became a very successful doctor and would not have been that if it hadn't been for America.

http://www.georgeweissmd.com/

2.A resource is also my dad himself. He provides me with information about his past in Romania, how it felt to come to America and what opportunities came with that, and how the Holocaust affected him. I am also able to learn about my grandparents and their time in Romania, and of course the Holocaust itself.

3.My last source could be my mother because she was very close to my father's parents and has heard stories from them about their time in the Holocaust. She also knows about my father's past and she herself has converted to Judaism, so I can talk to her about what it means to be Jewish.

When I hear my dad talk I can feel how happy and grateful he is for the opportunities that America has provided him and what it has done for his life. He also just reminded me to never let anyone tell you no. He never did and he is proud of the fact that his family never did.I learned that not only were the persecuted for being Jewish, but their home was taken away due to communism on top of Judaism. They faced adversity in many aspects of life but never allowed that to let them down. They went to America for the opportunity it gave them.